From: "Ronald Thomas"
To: "PETER TOON"
Sent: Monday, June 16, 2003 8:58 PM
Subject: Re: Triad, Trinitas, Trinity
Peter, do run again, if you please, the piece about why "In the name of God:Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" is novel and erroneous. I think others might benefit from it as much as I did.
Thanks, Ron
Here is my response:
Let us name & adore the Holy Trinity aright!
The Church of God made use of her best minds and devout hearts over a long period of heated debate to reach basic agreement as to the identity, the name and the doctrine of The Trinity.
Today, too many in the Church of God seem to think that we can discount that profound debate and those holy conclusions and frame for ourselves, after minimal study, statements that rightly name The Trinity.
When we take short cuts, and presume that we can do the work with only a passing glance at the labour of the Church of God in the patristic and medieval periods, we may think that we have confessed The Holy Trinity when in fact we have confessed a doctrine, even a heresy, which the Fathers and Scholastics were intent on avoiding!
In this realm of Christian discourse only precise expressions will suffice and this means also close attention to the construction of sentences and to syntax and style and (if we write in English or Greek) to the use of the definite article.
In 1966/7 in its new liturgy of the Holy Communion the ECUSA introduced a novel way of naming the Holy Trinity and that way has stuck through thick and thin to the present day (and has even been adopted by the Church of England in certain texts of its Common Worship). As far as I can tell this form had not been used before in English. In looking at it we have to pay careful attention not merely to the words used but to the construction of the sentences.
"Blessed be God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
And blessed be his kingdom, now and for ever."
It is claimed that this form of words is the dynamic equivalent of the Blessing in the Orthodox Liturgy which is usually translated from the Greek
thus: "Blessed be the kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always, even unto ages of ages."
One thing may be said of the Divine Liturgy of the Orthodox Churches and it is this. The doctrine therein and the form of words used all conform most precisely to the dogma of the seven ecumenical councils.
If one takes as one's starting point the authority of the dogma set forth in the ecumenical councils, then various problems arise with the novel American acclamation/blessing. If it is intended to follow the Greek Blessing then it should have been: "Blessed be the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit". Here there is the use of the definite article to make clear the precise identity of the Three Persons.
By introducing the word "God", leaving out the definite articles, and introducing of all things, the colon, the American liturgists (probably Massey Shepherd Jr) introduced confusion. Certainly those with orthodox minds and charitable hearts can make the novel form of words speak orthodoxy; but, for those without a training in patristic and medieval dogma the novel form of words does not in a natural reading and meaning proclaim orthodoxy.
The most natural meaning is that there is a God who has an unique kingdom and that this God has Three unique( or special) Names - Father, Son and Holy Spirit (or as in modern renderings of this is Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier). In other words, the ancient and common heresy of Modalism is here being proclaimed - if we read these words in their natural meaning and take note of the colon. That is, there is One Person of God, who has Three Names (or Three Modes of Being, or Three Basic Functions), and this God has a kingdom which is blessed for ever.
So, if we really want rightly to Name the Trinity and adore this Triune God, let us keep to the hallowed expressions of the traditional Liturgies (e.g., the Roman begins, "In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit"). If we feel obliged to use this 1967 ECUSA novelty then let us change it back to the original to read:
"Blessed be the kingdom of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and always, even unto ages of ages. Amen." (The priest to say everything except the Amen.)
The vocation of the Church of God today is not to innovate in dogma or morality but to proclaim the one Faith in a way that people can hear and receive. The jurisdiction known as the ECUSA was in the 1960s and 1970s much influenced by liberal and latitudinarian Catholicism and the effects of this are to be seen throughout its new liturgies and thus in the 1979 book, which so often has the appearance of catholic dogma but presents in fact ancient and modern heresy!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
No comments:
Post a Comment